Annavasal block in the district will be freed from the health hazard caused by open defecation and a special scheme is being launched in the block through the District Rural Development Agency and the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation.
The block has been selected under the State Balanced Growth Fund for ensuring overall economic development. As part of it, the DRDA, in coordination with the foundation, has taken up a three-year programme on “Elimination of open defecation and improvement in health, hygiene, and sanitation by provision of individual toilets and behavioural change and communication strategy,” said R. Rajkumar, Senior Scientist of the Foundation, while speaking at an awareness programme organised in the village on Monday.
He said the foundation had taken up a survey in all the 43 village panchayats in the block and had nominated one coordinator for each panchayat for identifying the open defecation zone in the panchayat.
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V.C. Subash Gandhi, District Programme Coordinator of the Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project, spoke on the hazards of the open defecation. He said that non-utilisation of individual toilets was a major problem in a few households. He underlined the need for taking up a sustained awareness campaign in the block.